06 January 2010

Money, money, money

I've been rereading Piper's Desiring God lately and found that I had forgotten how penetrating it really is. It's convicting me at a much deeper level this time. Particularly today, the chapter on money.

If your godliness has freed you from the desire to be rich and has helped you be content with what you have, then your godliness is tremendously profitable (pg.155). How very true. How many of us can say this?

The are no U-Hauls behind hearses (pg. 156). You can't take it with you.

After your basic needs are met, accumulated money begins to diminish your capacity for these pleasures rather than increase them. Buying things contributes absolutely nothing to the heart's capacity for joy (pg. 157). Ever notice that? That's while the thrill of ownership where's off so soon.

...[L]et us use our freedom as Christians to say no to the desire for riches and yes to the truth....(pg. 159).

Finally, we should consider the following from page 163: God is not glorified when we keep for ourselves (no matter how thankfully) what we ought to be using to alleviate the misery of unevangelized, uneducated, unmedicated, and unfed millions. The evidence that many professing Christians have been deceived by this doctrine is how little they give and how much they own. God has prospered them. And by an almost irresistible law of consumer culture (baptized by a doctrine of health, wealth and prosperity) they have bought bigger (and more) houses, newer (and more) cars, fancier (and more) clothes, better (and more) meat, and all manner of trinkets and gadgets and containers and devices and equipment to make life more fun.

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